The Push to Move Abortion Out of the Clinic, Into the Hospital, and Back Into Mainstream Medicine

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I think that medicine, just to generalize, tends to be a conservative profession in the sense that people are wary of controversy. And so the fear has been because abortion breaks controversy, it's not people are anti-choice in Madison or are looking even so closely at it, they're just a little wary.

In an article in this weekend's New York Times Magazine, contributor Emily Bazelon profiles a group she calls "The New Abortion Providers," young doctors who are attempting to move abortion out of clinics and back into hospitals.

Bazelon tracks a "counteroffensive" underway in medical schools and among doctors to restore abortion to more mainstream medicine. But it isn't an easy task, Bazelon writes: Ten years after Roe v. Wade, the number of sites across the country that provided abortions nearly doubled to 2,900. But by the year 2000, it was back down to 1,800. And the number shrank again between 2000 and 2005.

Bazelon spoke to doctors across the country who provide abortions, but don't like to call themselves abortion doctors. She tells us how much ground those doctors may be gaining amidst a raging culture war.